Academic Success

Building Your Learning Community

Are there people you’re connecting with during your time here at UAMS? Who makes up your pack, your crowd, your network, your peeps? Are you including the people you collaborate, study, and work with as part of your coursework? What about the instructors and practitioners who serve as mentors and advisers? Don’t forget the students and faculty from your IPE groups. These are some of the people you have in your learning community.

What is a Learning Community

A learning community is a group of people who share common academic goals and meet together to collaborate on coursework and increase their learning. They can be formal structured communities like the academic houses in the Colleges of Medicine and Nursing. They can also be informal groups of the people you go to for exam reviews, group projects, and collaborative research papers.

Benefits of a Learning Community

There are a number of good reasons for building/participating in a learning community.

Study Partners. Being part of a community means you always have a stable group of people working together to make the learning more effective. The students share resources that that can make learning easier. Therefore, they feel more prepared for exams by quizzing one another and explaining difficult information.

Out-of-Class Experiences. Whether it’s service learning, volunteer opportunities, or interprofessional projects, connecting with others in a community will make learning more meaningful, authentic, and interprofessional.

Connections to Instructors and Mentors. Building relationships through service learning and volunteer opportunities with instructors and practitioners will help you know where you will want to go in your profession after you have graduated.

Lasting Friendships and Professional Relationships. The people you connect with today will be the people you will work with as you build your professional career, and move your profession forward in providing the best possible health care experience.

Chances are you have already gathered people both from inside and outside your program into a learning community. They are the people you go to regularly for study sessions and labor with on group projects. Enjoy these relationships. They make your learning better and increase your satisfaction with your time here at UAMS.

Human Errors

You may have noticed a mistake or two in the text of this blog. There are at least 8 (a light-hearted illustration on my part of the theme of the blog). Can you find them all? You may email me at remusser@uams.edu for a list of the ones I intentionally included.

Oops. I did it again. I apologize. My misteak. Earlier this week I sent an email to a colleague, and I included a brief description of the file I attached. Guess what—I failed to attach the document. Know what happened the next time I sent that same person an attachment? Your right, I attached the document. Why are we so afraid to goof up? In the book Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, the author Peterr C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel make the observation, “. . . errors are an integral part of striving to increase one’s mastery over new material.” And later in the discussion they add, “When learners commit errors and are given corrective feedback, the errors are not learned.” This finding is in contrast to a widely-held belief that the very act of making a mistake reinforces that mistake in the mind and actions of the learner. Not so, if the learner or the instructor provide reflection and correction.

Some of the Best Learning is Built on Errors

I can hear the naysayers (myself included) push back that some errors are more critical than others. As Stewart on the TV show “The Big Bang theory” observed, “It’s wrong to say a tomato is a vegetable; it’s very wrong to say it’s a suspension bridge.’ I don’t want my surgeon or my airline pilot getting it wrong. That’s why there are flight simulators and practice ahead of time—it’s better to make our mistakes in the learning lab than on the actual job. With reflection and another go at it we learn, and we do better. We do make mistakes; the time tested statement is correct, “to err is human.” It might be nice to live an error-free life in an error-free world, but we do not. In fact, contrary to our expectations the best learning is built on failures and on the subsequent efforts to evaluate what went wrong, why, and how to avoid that problem next time. After all, Edison’s light bulb was not nearly his first attempt nor was he the first person to create an electric light.

In our culture to accept mistakes, even more to embrace them as a valued component of learning, goes against the grain. One of the unfortunate affects of this attitude is that we become risk averse, unlikely to test new skills or to try new ways of thinking. Yet, novel thinking and novel methods are necessary for improvement. So, give yourself a brake. Embrace your mistakes. Do note them, examine them (why did that happen, what exactly happened, how can I do better next time), and learn.

Outside your Comfort Zone

Contributing Author, Vanessa Lewis, is the Student Services Manager and is known for rescuing Charlie, the famous UAMS Cat. She knows that making connections with your peers is an important way to help reduce academic stress, and offers these suggestions for adding diversity to your circle of peers.

When I was going through my graduate program at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, I always looked at the Fall Semester as an opportunity to start with a fresh perspective; a clean slate and a new beginning. I was determined to set small goals outside of the demands of the rigorous course work that I had to withstand. One goal, in particular, was to step outside of my comfort zone and network with students outside of my program. While I was very comfortable hanging out with like-minded peers, I knew that this approach would not advance or diversify my ability to speak to all individuals. Stepping outside my comfort zone felt awkward at first but I met so many amazing people that have been a positive influence in my life.

Find Peers Outside your Comfort Zone

I want to encourage all UAMS students to broaden your approach and not to isolate within your designated college. There will be numerous free social gatherings, programs and initiatives that Campus Life and Student Support Services will coordinate throughout the fall and spring semester. The majority of what we coordinate will offer free food and I know that every college student enthusiastically accepts eating free food! Social gatherings that we offer could lead to lifelong friendships, impact your career placement, and offer you an outlet to de-stress in a safe environment. Several of the events will be in the Student Center so it is important that you like the UAMS Student Center Facebook page. This will give you all the details about the upcoming events we host.

Upcoming Events

There is an early bird social gathering in the Student Center, September 6, from 7:30am-9:00 am which includes free drip coffee and pastries from Boulevard Bread Company. This is followed by a Meet and Greet on Friday, September 8th from 8:00 to 10:00 pm at Cajun’s Wharf.

I challenge all of you to set a small goal to socialize and add diversity to your circle of peers. There is wisdom in my words if you will allow yourself to embrace and adhere to them.

Choose What Matters

Welcome to UAMS, especially to students in the College of Nursing! You are the reason I’m here! I am the Student Success Center faculty member who specifically works with College of Nursing students. I’m excited to be a part of what we get to offer to students: Academic Coaching, Peer Tutoring, and many other resources!

When I was invited to write this welcome post, I started thinking about what I would say to my past self. It would be this: Choose what matters most to you, and make time for those things.

As you go through your program, you’ll have multiple things vying for your attention: classes, career, family, yourself. All of these are good things, but by being picky and creating margin in your life, you can make time for the things that matter the most to you.

Choose to Be Picky

When you are choosing where to spend your time and energy, be picky.

It’s easy to think that the more things you do, the better your experience will be. That’s not always the case. In the 1991 comedy City Slickers, the cowboy Curly tells Billy Crystal’s character that in life only “one thing” matters, but that he’ll have to figure out for himself what that “one thing” is.

For some of you, the “one thing” may be forming a study group that works hard together and supports each other; it may be seeking out Peer Tutoring (or being a Peer Tutor) so that you can get the most out of your educational experience. For others, the “one thing” may be deciding with your family how to plan ahead for study time while also leaving space for family time.

Choose the Margin

As you choose to make time for the things that matter the most to you, you will have to say no to some things in order to say yes to others. This is the idea of “margin”.

Margin in life is just like a margin around a page – it’s a planned space that allows for life to be imperfect. I used to try to say yes to everything I possibly could: spending time with friends, volunteering at every event that came my way, reading every book that I thought would help me accomplish my goals. What I finally realized was that spending time doing everything left very little time for the things that actually mattered to me.

I started creating margin in my life. I volunteered at one place I really cared about. I stopped scheduling events on top of each other & hoping that I somehow could magically create more hours in the day. For you this may look like leaving 10-15 minutes earlier so that you can arrive refreshed for class or work even if traffic is bad. Or it may be saying no to a night out 3 days before a test so that you can say yes to doing well on the test and yes to a celebratory night out when the test is over.

Choose the One Thing

When you think ahead to this semester, and your next few years here at UAMS, choose what matters most to you, and make time for these things. Be picky about where you spend your time and energy, and give yourself margin for life to be messy. Your “one thing” may look different from someone else’s, and that’s okay.

As you work through decide what matters most to you, and make time for these things, I’ll be happy to help in any way I can.

Reward and Challenge at UAMS

Welcome to UAMS, and specifically to the students of the College of Health Professions! The start of a new academic year is filled with optimism, possibilities, and challenges. While you are here, the faculty and staff will work to prepare you for success in the profession you have chosen to pursue. They will teach you the information you need to know. They will demonstrate the skills you will be asked to perform. They will challenge you to think critically and apply your skills in a clinical setting, and they will ask you to see yourself as an important and responsible member of a professional community. The process will be exciting, rewarding, and very challenging.

A Different Challenge: It all Counts Now

Your coursework at UAMS will be different from what you have done before you arrived. Here, all your classes are important – they all count. There’s no Ancient Civilization or American Literature course that you can take and then forget. At UAMS, the classes build on one another. Every class you take will be vital for success in the next class. There is no forgettable, or throw-away information. You will need what you learned for one test to be successful on the next test. Everything you learn will be needed for your board and certification exams. You begin preparing for your profession on the first day of class.

A New Challenge: Your Habits Will Change

Because everything counts now, many of the time management and study habits you used for earlier courses may not be enough for you to be successful. Often students study exam to exam. This means that they wait until an upcoming exam and then drop everything to study. In your new courses, these is so much information to learn, and you will often have multiple tests within a single week, so it is important to carefully manage your study time to stay on top of your workload.

You may also have to change the way you study. Many students study by rereading and highlighting their notes. But your tests aren’t assessing how well you stuff information into your head. Your tests are designed to check how efficiently and effectively you can pull information out of your brain. So you will need to learn ways to practice for your exams by creating your own test questions and answering them. If you would like more information or help, the Learning Specialists at the Student Success Center can help you sharpen your time management and study skills.

A Rewarding Challenge: You will be a Health Professional

When you graduate from UAMS you will be ready to take your place as a member of the community of health care professionals. You will leave with the knowledge, skills, and experience you need for a successful future, making your time here a rewarding challenge. Make the most of the opportunities you are offered to become better in your chosen profession. Enjoy your time with your classmates and learn from one another. Often, they can continue to be a source of support and encouragement throughout your career. This great adventure will challenge and change you in ways you can’t yet imagine, but it will also bring many rewards, both during your time at UAMS and in the future.

Remember, the Student Success Center is ready to help you through many of the challenges you face in working toward a successful academic and professional career. You can learn more about our services on our website at https://students.uams.edu/success/.

Resilience Study

More years ago than I care to remember, in high school, I ran the 880 yard dash and one mile relay leg. Meets opened with those nutty guys running the 2 mile. Only in that race did everyone run together: the varsity and the freshman/sophomore teams. At one race, when I was a senior, a lone freshman from another town ran so slowly he was in danger of being lapped twice by the winning varsity runner. Only a desperate sprint at the end of his sixth lap prevented this ignominy. He struggled to the next curve and fell off the track into the grass, not finishing. Some years later my younger brother, one of those nutty long-distance runners, told me “The Rest of the Story.” That same runner moved to another event, off the track even, onto the field, and he won the conference meet in the high jump his senior year.

Success, Failure, and Resilience

As we think about resilience in this series of posts, why does one succeed and another not? What is resilience? Is it the dogged determination of General Grant, or is it the transition to another endeavor to which a person is better suited? Both seem resilient in different ways. Both moved on to success.

3 Models of Resilience

Resilience study has become an established academic subject, principally among psychologists and psychiatrists and originally focused on childhood development in the face of crises or traumas. In her book Ordinary Magic: Resilience in Development Ann Masten notes that some research has given attention to the variables in situations requiring resilience. At least three models of resilience have arisen out of attention to these variables. One model notes that resilience arises in the direct interplay between a person’s assets and some risk or adversity. As a UAMS student you might spend your assets of organization and detailed recall to prepare a paper or study for an exam.

A second model notes that mediators, indirect influences, are often present. Masten recounts that economic downturn in the late 20th century led to a significant rise in worsening adolescent family relationships among Iowa farm families. In our situation, poor sleep, unhealthy diet and exercise, and other issues can contribute to adverse academic performance. As best you can, eat well (not much, but well), sleep well, keep active. Take care of yourself, and you will more likely thrive. A third model suggests that moderators are often significant. A moderator is an intervention which removes or ameliorates an adversity. They function like airbags, Masten suggests, lying dormant, unused until needed. For instance, someone prevents an attacker or shields a victim. Masten mentions the widespread use of 911 as a moderator which greatly improved outcomes.

I think of our Student Success Center as this kind of moderator. We are here for academic coaching, for peer tutoring, for writing help, for referral to other services. Help us help you be more resilient when you face adversity at UAMS. Face adversity you will; be as prepared as you can to bounce back, a resilient success.

Resilience After Failing

At the end of the first day of the Battle of Shiloh Tennessee in 1862, the forces under General Ulysses Grant were demoralized and defeated. Late that night Grant’s second-in-command, William T. Sherman found Grant under a tree in the pouring rain. ‘Well, Grant,’ said Sherman, ‘we’ve had the devil’s own day, haven’t we?’ ‘Yes,’ Grant replied, ‘lick ’em tomorrow, though.’ http://www.historynet.com/account-of-battle-of-shiloh.htm

The next day, they did. Reinforcements arrived, and Grant’s army succeeded in pushing back the Confederates to win the battle. General Grant’s resilience made it possible for him to push for victory after a calamitous setback and failure.

What is Resilience?

Resilience is the inner quality that enables you to pick yourself up after a failure or setback and move forward toward a success. Instead of giving up, a resilient person takes time to reflect and honestly analyze the why behind the failure or setback. He or she corrects their errors, formulates a new plan, and moves forward toward the goal.

Resilience helps students come back after failing a test. While performing poorly on an exam can be upsetting, remember, you will usually have many opportunities to “show what you know”. What is most important is that you move forward, and perform better the next time.

What Does a Resilient Student Do After Failing?

So what should you actually do after failing a test? The actual process is quite straightforward, although every student will execute it differently. Very simply, you should reflect, analyze, make changes, and execute.

Reflect. Begin with reflecting back over your preparation, and your expectations before you took the test. How well did you manage your time? What study strategies did you use to prepare? Did you learn as much as you could about the test? What were your expectations going into the test? Did your expectations match reality?

Analyze. It’s not enough to find the right answers to the test questions you missed. Instead, do a careful review of your exam and analyze each item to determine why you missed it. Did you not know the information? Did you misread the question, rush through it, or forget to come back to it? Did you panic and shut down? Were you sick or hungry? All of these are reasons for poor performance, and it’s important to know why you missed a question so you know what to change for the next test.

Make changes. Once you know why you missed an item you can make changes in the way you prepared (studied) or in how you took the test. For example, if you didn’t know the information, you can make sure that it’s in your notes and you tested yourself on it before the exam. If you misread the question, you can read it more deliberately, and read each response before you select one. Figure out what you need to do, and then plan how you will do it.

Execute. Now, follow through and do the things you need to do to be more successful. Your planned changes are worthless if you don’t actually put them into practice.

Developing your resilience will serve you well during your academic and professional careers. If you want help coming back from failing a test, complete the Academic Coaching Request to schedule an appointment with a Learning Specialist in the Student Success Center. We will be happy to help you make positive changes in your study and test-taking habits and become more academically successful.

Congratulations and Graduation

Congratulations!

You made it to one degree or another. You made it, and now it’s time to move on. Go with our blessing. Live well, be good, work hard, take care.

To those of you graduating this semester, congratulations on this important achievement. To those who have courses yet to come and hurdles yet to clear, congratulations on your progress so far. Take a break, and celebrate. Celebrate with your classmates. Celebrate with your partners and your families. Those communities help make us who we are, and one way or another the ones standing alongside contributed to our success. Some of them cheered you on and gave you needed motivation. Some to them challenged you and made you prove that you could be better. Some of them did the mundane tasks so you could concentrate on your studies. Remember that lots of people celebrate with you: family and friends and mentors and colleagues.

Honor the Graduation Rituals

And remember too that milestones such as these are often marked by rituals. New nurses are pinned and welcomed into the professional community of nursing. Those of you who have demonstrated skilled expertise earn important certificates. At graduation you will receive official degrees, and new PhDs will be hooded. Rituals are important markers of initiation and accomplishment. Rituals signal that we have taken on new identities and roles in society. Rituals are communal acts that say something about what our lives mean. Now, it’s true that rituals can be laborious and take work on our part, and who wants to jump through another hoop at this stage in the game? Go ahead and honor the ritual. Time-honored traditions have their place. Even if you aren’t particularly enamored by the ritual, I’ll bet an especially tender parent or a loving spouse will care. They will love to see and applaud the actual event. These professional rituals should be honored. Don’t neglect them, and do claim your rightful place among the accomplished.

So once again, congratulations. Go with our best wishes. As you go follow all that good motherly advice: brush your teeth, continue to study hard, be a good person, live well, work hard, take care of yourselves, wash your hands and behind your ears.
Bye for now.

Tips for Testing Well

When it comes to testing well there is no substitute for planning and preparation. There are, however, some practical approaches, or test-taking strategies, you can use to ensure that your performance accurately reflects your preparation.

Test-taking strategies improve how you take a test. They include your attitude and how you read and answer test questions, and can be used across disciplines. Using good test-taking strategies improves your testing skills, often resulting in higher scores and increased confidence. Common strategies include

Carefully reading the directions
Knowing the types and number of questions
Answering the easy questions first
Managing your time carefully

Testing well will also require that you know how to approach more complex and difficult questions. These questions often present a detailed scenario, and then ask you to supply a specific piece of information or part of a process. Use the following steps to improve your performance on these types of questions.

Work the Question

The first step is to zero in on what the question is asking. In complex questions it can be difficult to figure out exactly what the questioner wants. Some of the details in the question can be distracting, so you need to work the question carefully in order to know how to answer it. Try to come up with a likely answer in your head. If your answer differs from the response options, you probably didn’t analyze the question correctly.

Read all the Answers

One of the biggest mistakes people make when taking a test is to select the first “correct” answer and move on to the next question. Most questions will have more than one response that sounds correct, so it is important to carefully read them all.

Eliminate Options

It’s easier to get to the correct answer if you eliminate the obviously wrong answers. Sometimes the options will contain distractors. These might be answers that have subtle errors in them, or have absolutes like always and never. Distractors tend to sound good, but aren’t quite right.

Apply the “Most/Best Rule”

Once you have narrowed your options, it’s time to choose the best answer. One strategy is to apply the Most/Best rule. Generally, the answer that applies to most of the people, most of the time is the best answer. Unless the question is asking for an outlier, it is unlikely that best answer will be a 1/200 occurrence.

Planning and preparation are still key to testing well, but using good testing strategies can increase your confidence and help you bump up your scores. You can find more resources to help you improve your test-taking skills and a tutorial on our Learning Support page.

Easing Test Anxiety

Have you ever been taking a test when suddenly everything goes blurry, you can feel your heart begin to race, and you start having trouble understanding the test question? I have. For me, it was test anxiety.

What Causes Test Anxiety?

Test anxiety can come from many sources. It can come from not preparing well, having had difficult testing experiences in the past, or having your mind on outside circumstances (like not feeling well or worrying about something at home or work.)

Preparing Well

Let’s talk about preparation for a minute. Have you ever stayed up all night before a test cramming information? You might be able to remember some information, but exhaustion makes it even harder to understand the test questions and apply the details you’re trying to remember.

Instead of waiting to prepare for an exam until the night before, start reviewing materials and testing yourself as early in advance as you can. Preparing early can give you more time to learn the information. It also can take away some of the fear of the unknown that can come when thinking about an upcoming test.

Testing Well

What if you prepared well, but you still feel anxious when you’re taking the test? If this happens, recognize how you’re feeling, accept that it’s normal to feel nervous, and then take steps to re-focus on what you know. Take a deep breath, and choose the best answer option for each question. Focus on what you do know, and make your best educated guess on questions you’re a little unsure about. You can always revisit questions at the end if you want to.

Being Well

Take care of yourself before the test. Know where you need to be for the test, and when you need to be there. Since you’ve already been studying for the test, you won’t need to review at the last minute, and you can take that time right before the test to practice a relaxation exercise, read something that makes you laugh, or eat a snack.

Anxiety before a test is normal, coming from our desire to do our best. Planning ahead so you are well prepared, employing good test-taking strategies during the test, and taking care of yourself so you are rested and feel well when the time comes will help ease your anxiety and help you feel more confident going into the test.

If you’d like more information about addressing test anxiety and preparing for tests, check out our On-Demand Resources or use the Academic Coaching request form to contact a Learning Specialist. If you want to talk about anxiety in general, contact the UAMS Student Wellness Center at 501-686-8408; they’re available to all UAMS students.